Business
by hallospacegirl
Summary: While accompanying her husband and son on a business trip to Cairo, Marjorie, the wife of the curator of the British Museum, meets Ardeth Bay. They engage in a battle of wills. Ardeth, OC.
1. Chapter 1

BUSINESS

Summary: The wife of the curator of the British Museum meets Med-Jai warrior Ardeth Bay. Ardeth, OC.

Category: Angst, drama, romance.

Rating: M (eventually)

Feel free to post this story on any other websites you see fit, as long as you include the following info: 

Author: Hallospacegirl  
Email: hallospacegirl1013 (at) lycos (dot) com

Author's note: All of my original characters bear no resemblance to anyone, living or dead. I'm just writing this for fun and pulling "facts" from my ass, so please excuse any departures from real life.

Chapter One

It was Saturday afternoon and the traders were back again. From the third floor window of the British Hotel, Marjorie watched them ride in on their camels and come to a halt outside of the blackened steel gates encircling the hotel.

Four shaggy dromedaries, loaded down with bulging canvas sacks of silver goods that flashed under the sun, and three men.

Tuareg men.

She knew that much from the luminous indigo cloth that they wore like mummy wrappings, and from their leathery dark skin that was stained blue with the dye. They were unloading their wares from the camels when five Egyptian men, dressed in ill-fitting British police uniforms and neatly bundled white turbans, emerged from the hotel and approached the traders.

They conversed together in Arabic; from what little Marjorie could overhear, the Tuaregs spoke the language haltingly, in a glottal and throaty accent that was unfamiliar to her. She couldn't understand any of the words except for when both parties shook their heads and said: "La. La."

No. No.

The policemen jabbed their fingers at the slobbering camels and then pointed into the distance, and the Tuaregs repeated: "La."

She could feel the tension rising into the already chokingly sweltering air, and briefly wondered if a fight was going to break out between the Egyptians and the Tuaregs. She watched the policemen fingering their British-issued handguns that were hanging from leather holsters at their waists. The Tuaregs sneered and stood their ground amidst their swathes of blue.

Perhaps guns were hidden between the folds of their clothes, or better yet, swords. She realized that she was not afraid at the prospect of a bloody battle breaking out at the doorstep of the British Hotel, and that she was in fact looking forward to it. She entertained the vision of heads flying and swords flashing as the ambassadors' wives ran scattered and gibbering through the courtyard like chickens.

Right now they were still wandering languidly among the palm trees, coquettishly twirling their parasols at their shoulders as though they were still expecting someone to give a damn about the milky paleness of their skin and cast them an amorous second glance.

It was Cairo, not London, and nobody gave a damn. And to think that three weeks ago she had come within an inch of being lured into the silly little gossip circle: "Mrs. Harrington, we would be so honored if you could join us in an afternoon tea in the courtyard. God's own Earl Grey from England, not that ghastly cardamom substance the heathens drink here. This place is insufferable, don't you think? Not fit for humans. Heaven knows how we could survive without each other. British solidarity, ladies, and a glorious cup of Earl Grey. What do you say, Mrs. Harrington?"

La, la, la.

She had feigned dysentery and clapped herself up in the sweltering hotel room for a week, doing nothing but reading Alfred's travel guides and history books, and by the time she dared to emerge, the ladies had already finished establishing their clique without her.

From then on it was an unspoken war of sidelong glances. Marjorie would catch them smirking at her from behind their teacups, and she in turn would laugh to herself each time they surreptitiously rouged their lips for the handsome Arabic men that would occasionally pass through the hotel lobby.

Those wives were all daydreaming of a desert romance with a dark-skinned stranger, but nobody was brave enough to actually follow through with a seduction. One glance from an Arab, and they would fall upon themselves giggling and blushing like children. And Marjorie suspected one man in particular was the focus of their fantasies, a tall and tattooed – wait.

Outside of the window. There he was.

The man was striding across the courtyard to the gate, where the police and the traders were now breathing guttural insults down each other's throats. His back was turned to her, but she could tell from his garments and his walk that it was the stranger whom she had seen in the hotel five or six times within the past month.

He was neither Arabic nor Tuareg nor Bedouin. He wore a large black turban that was wrapped sleekly and held together with a leather band, and his forehead and cheeks were adorned with blue-black tattoos of hieroglyphs and other unfamiliar symbols. Tattoos of thin triangles ran the lengths of the expansive backs of his hands. Mountains? Spikes? No. Claws.

One smothering afternoon she had chanced upon him conversing with Alfred in the corner of the third floor hallway; he had rolled his sleeves up to the elbows, and she had spied a tattoo of an eye on the inside of his wrist.

He had noticed her first – his brown eyes glaring under furrowed brows and his full lips curled in a grimace, revealing teeth – but she could only bring herself to call out her husband's name.

"Alfred – what—"

"Margie, my darling, this—"

And the man had said something under his breath, something that sounded like: "I told you, no." And he had looked away from her and disappeared.

That night at dinner, as Alfred entertained a rapt Charlie with stories about mummies come to life, she had found herself thinking back to the stranger with the tattoos, and wondering what they meant, and what other secret markings were adorning his body, out of sight.

Now, from her seat at the windowsill, Marjorie watched as the man approached the scuffle, barking hoarsely at both the police and the Tuaregs in rapid-fire Arabic.

She finally caught a word from the dense tirade. "Inshallah…" Something about God's will; he was threatening them.

The policemen finally threw up their hands in frustration and rocked back on the heels of their leather boots. Somebody within the group yelled in heavily accented English: "Go back to the desert where you belong, you bloody Med-Jai."

But nevertheless five minutes later, the police had retreated inside the hotel, and the Tuaregs had loaded up their camels and started down the dusty road that led to the outskirts of the city.

She noticed now that the ambassador's wives, who were clustered like a gaggle of white geese at the fountain in the center of the courtyard, had been watching the scene all along. And when the man passed them as he walked back to the hotel they all grinned dumbly like painted clowns.

And when he came within fifteen, twenty feet from the hotel building she realized that he was now looking up at the window and staring back at her.

She didn't know what came over her – it could have been the heat, or the satisfaction of seeing the scuffle come to an end, or the delicious prospect of imagining those women bubbling over with anger and jealousy underneath their prim little parasols. She leaned her head out of the window and said, "Good afternoon, sir."

He paused in his tracks. He didn't speak; he was half-frowning at her with an inscrutable expression. And then he nodded at her, once, and continued on his way to the entrance of the hotel.

She leaned out of the window a fraction more. "Is Med-Jai your name, sir?"

He stopped again. Looked up. Then: "No."

"I am sorry for prying," she began loudly, feeling a smile creeping onto her face; she wasn't sorry in the least and she could tell from his answering glare that he knew perfectly well. "I am truly sorry for prying, but I remember that you met my husband a week or two ago. Alfred Harrington, curator of Ancient Arts at the British Museum? We were never formally introduced." She darted a glance to the ladies at the fountain and saw that they were throwing daggers into her with their eyes. She turned her attention back to the man. "My name's Marjorie. And you are—"

"Med-Jai is the name of my tribe," he interrupted her in a lightly accented baritone. "If you'll excuse me—"

"I don't mean to sound like a nosy busybody, but what business did you have with my husband? The way you two were talking – was it about something terribly exciting?"

"Business, Mrs. Harrington, is never terribly exciting."

"Is that why my husband refuses to tell me anything about your meeting with him? I'm intrigued. I'm very intrigued."

"As they say in your country, curiosity killed the cat."

"But they also say in my country that a cat has nine lives."

"I find it difficult to believe that a woman like you still has any to spare."

"What are you saying, Med-Jai? That I'm too reckless or that I'm too old?"

He only stared blankly her, and then, suddenly, let out a short laugh. He shook his head, his black wavy hair brushing his shoulders, and began walking to the door of the hotel. "Have a good afternoon, Mrs. Harrington."

"What do your tattoos mean?"

He halted in his tracks for the third time. "Excuse me?"

"The tattoos on your cheek, your forehead, your hands, and your wrist. What do they mean?"

That expression on his face – Marjorie finally realized what it was. He was incredulous. For a full ten seconds he seemed as though he was teetering between embarrassment and fury, between storming off or shouting at her to go back inside and stop making fools of the both of them. And then his face dissolved into a grin and he shook his head again, slowly, eyeing the ground and toeing at a clump of dirt with his boot. "It means," he finally said, glancing back up, "that you have been paying too much attention."

"I've been living in dreary old London for my whole life. I can't help myself. It's the cat in me, I suppose. The cat with no lives. Wouldn't you agree?"

"Mrs. Harrington," he replied quietly. His face had lost its smile. "I agree that it is appropriate for me to end this conversation."

"Your tattoos, Med-Jai."

"Goodbye."

"Your name—"

"Ask someone else if you're this curious, Mrs. Harrington," the man said, flinging open the door of the hotel and stepping inside, "like your husband."

From across the courtyard, some of the ambassadors' wives were staring at her with eyes as round as full moons, and some were squinting at her with eyes as narrow as sickle moons.

TO BE CONTINUED…


	2. Chapter 2

BUSINESS

Summary: The wife of the curator of the British Museum meets Med-Jai warrior Ardeth Bay. Ardeth, OC.

Category: Angst, drama, romance.

Rating: M (eventually)

Author's note: All of my original characters bear no resemblance to anyone, living or dead. I'm just writing this for fun and pulling "facts" from my ass, so please excuse any departures from real life.

Chapter Two

That evening, she picked a fight with Alfred for the first time since their arrival in Egypt, over nothing.

"Talk to me, Alfred." The lamb that their cook Samira had roasted was cooling on the china, the grease hardening into opaque yellow clumps along the edges of her plate. She dragged the chunks of meat across her plate with her fork, rearranging the grease trails to form a star, a heart, a primitive smiling face with dots for eyes and an upturned gash for a mouth. "Talk to me."

They had gone to the pyramid of Khufu this time, Alfred said, and Charlie had climbed five entire sandstone blocks before letting vertigo get the better of him. That old fear of heights was just a childhood phase, and Alfred said that once they returned next week, he wouldn't be surprised in the least if Charlie boy could cover a good third of the distance up. The Egyptian air was making him strong, he said. Fearless.

She watched her son, who was stuffing mutton into his mouth with one hand, and absently scratching the sunburn on his nose with the other. "Charlie, dear, did you climb alone?"

"That I did, mum. Dad was talking to a group of strange men with drawings on their faces. He almost didn't see me reach the fifth block."

"Alfred."

"What?"

She loosed the silverware from her hands and let them clatter onto the table. "He's seven. What were you thinking?"

"I was right there, darling, watching over him. Nothing could have happened."

"Yes, because you're simply right about everything, aren't you?"

He was staring at her with his mouth halfway open, and a line of yellow grease was making its way down the side of his chin. "You wanted to come with. Is that it? Is that all?"

"To watch over my son like a real parent, Alfred. I wouldn't mind sitting in this miserable hotel room day after day if it weren't for my son, who you're sending traipsing unsupervised over pyramids and God knows where else—"

"Mum, may I be excused?" Charlie interrupted, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, and the argument was put on hold as she ushered him to the bathroom and helped him scrub his face and hands clean in the basin. She left him playing with plastic soldiers in his bedroom, and returned to her husband, who was now smoking a cigar in the den.

"You're treating me like a criminal again, Margie," he said behind a cloud of smoke. "You're treating me as though I'm going out of my way to make your life miserable, when I'm doing just the opposite."

She sank into the wicker chair across from him. "The next thing you're going to say is that it is my fault in the first place for coming."

"What else can I say, Margie? The purpose of a business trip is business. You knew perfectly well back in England, but you begged for me to bring you and Charlie just the same."

She couldn't stop herself from letting out a snort. "Business."

"I've been drowning myself in meetings with those two-faced officials from the Cairo Museum for an entire month. Why do you insist on staying here alone, anyway? Robert has been telling me that his wife and some other ladies have formed—"

"They've formed a stupid little gossip group, where they whine about tea and Arabic men and the virtues of jolly old England all day. Join them? I'd rather die."

"Your problem, not mine. I have too much to take care of as it is."

"I don't doubt it, my dear pumpkin, my hummingbird of love," she said, and leaned forward in the chair. "After all, you're dealing with the Med-Jai." And she sat back to gauge his reaction.

It was as she had expected. Alfred tensed as though he had touched a live wire, and began blinking rapidly behind his gold-wired spectacles. He sucked forcefully, almost mechanically, on the cigar, and coughed out the nauseous fumes through his nostrils. "How did you know?"

"For heaven's sake, I'm not a mute. The man with the tattoos was here at the hotel today. We had a lovely conversation that lasted the afternoon."

He narrowed his eyes and took another drag of the cigar. "No, you didn't."

"And how would you know?"

"Because, darling, Ardeth Bay does not do conversation. He'd slice you in half with his scimitar first."

She let out a laugh. "Fair enough. I lied. I did all the talking while he said nothing of substance."

"So, woman," Alfred said, running a pale knuckle across his mustache, "you managed to hold some sort of interaction, however one-sided, with the warrior chief of all seven tribes of the Med-Jai. My colleagues would say you're a brave woman. But I know you're just too damn ignorant to know how to shut up."

Ardeth Bay. Warrior chief.

She brushed aside Alfred's insult and considered what he had told her; she remembered the claws running along the backs of the stranger's calloused and scarred hands. "I suppose the same goes for you, darling," she said at length. "After all, you've been meeting with him in this hotel, haven't you? And today at the pyramids, Alfred. Men with drawings on their faces? More Med-Jai. Do you care to tell me what this is all about?"

"Ardeth and I are having a torrid love affair," he replied, driving the end of his cigar into the ashtray. The burning tip withered away in a crunch of bitter, oily smoke. "We've been meeting clandestinely for weeks."

"Alfred."

"What do you think, Margie? It's the bloody museum. Why else would I possibly want to interact with those rag-headed tribesmen? They're telling me that the three newest artifacts in the British Museum do not belong there, and they're threatening me for their return. A bracelet and two stone tablets. Bloody hell." He rubbed the bridge of his nose with his forefinger and thumb, and she couldn't help noticing how slim and nervous his fingers were, like trembling white vines, tinged on the edges with pink.

"Is that all? I don't understand how this could be so difficult—"

"Is that all? Do you want to run the museum, my darling? Do you want to talk to them? It's much more complicated—"

"And I wouldn't be able to grasp the complexities of this whole situation because I am just a simple woman," she finished, rising from the chair. The lingering cigar smoke was clouding her head and stinging the insides of her nose. "I understand. I'm going to bed, darling."

"Never did I say that this was because of the fact that you are a woman. I am not a bloody backward tribesman, Margie. Imagine what they would think if I brought you with me on a business meeting."

"Good night."

"Marjorie. Wait."

She wheeled around at the doorway and snapped at him with a force that surprised even herself: "I'm tired, Alfred. This conversation is done. I'm tired."

Later that night she dreamt of desert dunes and pyramids and landscapes shifting with sand, but at the peripheries of her mind was always the tattooed face of Ardeth Bay, and she did not know why he was there, and she did not wish him away.

TO BE CONTINUED…


	3. Chapter 3

BUSINESS

Summary: The wife of the curator of the British Museum meets Med-Jai warrior Ardeth Bay. Ardeth, OC.

Category: Angst, drama, romance.

Rating: M (eventually)

Author's note: All of my original characters bear no resemblance to anyone, living or dead. I'm just writing this for fun and pulling "facts" from my ass, so please excuse any departures from real life.

Chapter Three

Sunday morning she faked a stomachache, and sipped on a cup of Earl Grey in bed as Alfred and Charlie donned black suits for church. From her chair at the window, she watched them heading across the courtyard with a handful of ambassadors and their parasoled wives, and after they had disappeared into the crowd outside of the gates, she waited for fifteen more minutes, finishing the rest of her tea. Then she threw on a kimono – white silk, painted over with delicate cherry blossoms of black and red – and headed downstairs into the lobby.

The mass exodus to God's house had left the room completely devoid of British faces. An Egyptian policeman and an olive-skinned serving girl with thick eyebrows stood at the corner of the lobby, talking to each other in muted tones. Turbaned porters milled about, drinking away the heat from large glasses and absently studying the mosaic tiles that patterned the lobby walls.

She took a seat at the sofa and ordered Turkish coffee, which the waiter brought to her in a small silver pot with a long handle. She poured the pungent black liquid into a teacup and downed the mixture of cardamom and cloves, letting the bitterness and loose coffee grounds slide upon her tongue.

She was on her third cup when he came in through the entrance. He didn't see her. No, he was a warrior chief; he couldn't have missed her. He was purposely cutting through the lobby as though she did not exist.

"Med-Jai."

If he was surprised to encounter her here, he didn't let it show, and he did not slow his stride as he passed her. "Mrs. Harrington."

"Come sit with me."

He wasn't stopping, so she reached out and grabbed the free end of his black waist sash. The tension held him and he spun to her, teeth glistening between parted lips.

"Your business is with Alfred," she said, "and I must tell you that he's not here at the moment."

The startled anger that clouded his eyes didn't abate. "How unfortunate for me."

"He's at church, seeking forgiveness with God."

This time, his lips twitched in something that hinted at a smile. "How unfortunate for him."

"That he's seeking forgiveness?"

"That his wife is not with him, following suit."

She smiled. "You're angry because I'm here, Ardeth Bay." She let his name lazily fall from her tongue, and smiled inwardly at the way he tensed, however subtly, at the words. "And I know why. You're here because you thought that Alfred and I would be at church. You wanted to snoop about our hotel room and dig up anything that might compromise Alfred and the British Museum. Use it as leverage to get back those tablets and that bracelet."

She hadn't expected him to laugh, but that was what he did. The sound ricocheted off of the mosaics on the walls, and the Egyptian lovers in the corner regarded them for a moment with silent wide eyes before resuming their murmuring conversation.

He sat down beside her on the sofa, leaving a cushion's space between them, and from this distance she could smell the desert on his clothes, the sand and the smoke and the sweat. "Blackmail, Mrs. Harrington. An uncultured and boorish plan of action from a – what was the phrase? A rag-headed heathen."

"No," she answered truthfully. "A brilliant and ruthless plan of action from a perceptive leader. You play the game from two steps ahead while my husband only plays from one."

"And yet you've intercepted me."

"You flatter me," she said. "I was just here for the coffee. Don't you want any?"

"I want to know how much you know."

She finished the last of the coffee, leaving the dregs in a gravelly brown mass at the bottom of the cup. "Your name is Ardeth Bay and you're the chief of the seven tribes of the Med-Jai. The British Museum has nabbed a bracelet and two stone tablets from your people. You're negotiating with my husband for their return, and you've been at a stalemate for a month. But what I don't understand is why you haven't pulled out the dirty tricks sooner, Ardeth. Give those treasure hunters who call themselves museum curators a taste of their own medicine."

He shook his head. "You give your British friends far too much credit. They're not the villains this time around. We are. One of our brothers in the Cairo Museum has allowed his greed to consume his better judgment."

"He sold the artifacts from your museum to ours?"

"The artifacts were never meant for a museum, Mrs. Harrington. They are historical relics from our past and are meant to remain with the high council of the Med-Jai. The traitor stole them from us and took them with him to the Cairo Museum, where he sold them to the British."

"We came by the artifacts legally, then. I must say I'm surprised."

Ardeth's glare only darkened. "As was I."

"Then with all due respect, you, sir, no longer have any right to any of it. Not even a crumb."

He dented his pearlescent upper teeth into his full lower lip. A snarl. "Your British brethren do not have rights to most of the items in that museum, Mrs. Harrington. If it weren't for your firepower, and your airplanes, and your sterling pounds, we would have regained rightful custody of all that you have stripped away from us centuries ago. If your navy and your army had not—"

"It doesn't matter, Med-Jai. No one at the British Museum will listen to your reasoning. Not when money continues to be made. If you don't deal with us the same way we've dealt with you, you can kiss those artifacts goodbye. I say you rob it back."

"We tried." He wasn't looking at her. "Multiple times. By Allah, we failed."

"A legitimate trade, then."

"One holy relic for another? Do you take us for swine?"

"Not relics," Marjorie said. "Me."

His eyes snapped up to hers, fierce and bright. "What?"

"Alfred has no choice but to love me, because he's completely lost without me. I'm the mother of his son. He'll trade in anything you ask for."

Ardeth stared at her, his broad chest heaving with silent, quick breaths underneath the layers of his tunic. A muscle worked in his jaw. Finally he said: "No."

"But you're tempted. I can see it."

"No."

"Kidnap me and two days later I'll be back home in rainy, cold London, and you'll be holding those relics with your own hands. Imagine…" She reached over and touched his hand.

His fingers were dry and thick and cool, like the sunburned, ropy fingers of any other worker Egyptian who lived outside of the hotel's iron gates, but nevertheless Marjorie found herself concentrating on the texture, running it over in her mind and storing it away into her memory.

And then she gasped. Ardeth had taken hold of both of her wrists in his fists. His hands were extraordinarily big, and his thumb overlapped the first joint of his index finger as he tightened his hold. She felt the pressure screaming through her bones.

"Mrs. Harrington," Ardeth said, "this is not a game." And he released her.

She watched as the blood surged back into the white indents left by his grip, and wondered what else he could do to her before one of them gave in. Then smiling into his face, she said: "It could be."

He rose from the sofa. "Do something productive with the rest of your time in Cairo. Find a friend."

"What do you mean?"

"You're a lonely woman, Mrs. Harrington, and that's why you are dangerous."

TO BE CONTINUED…


	4. Chapter 4

BUSINESS

Summary: The wife of the curator of the British Museum meets Med-Jai warrior Ardeth Bay. Ardeth, OC.

Category: Angst, drama, romance.

Rating: M

Author's note: Please note that the "M (eventually)" rating has now changed to M. It's also going to get a lot darker from here on in. Thank you for reading, and please review! I'm grateful for any reviews, positive, neutral, or negative.

Chapter Four

After Ardeth Bay left the lobby Marjorie walked back into her room and sat at her dresser and watched with a detached interest as the woman in the mirror began to cry. She wasn't exactly sad, not in any way that was comprehensible to her. She hadn't cried in ages, it seemed, and now was a good a time as any. She patiently let the tears drip from her red-rimmed blue eyes and trickle into the spider-thin gullies that were forming at the edges of her nose and her mouth.

She noticed some strands of gray hair mixed in with the brown along her temples, and spent a good ten minutes foraging for them and placing them in a little pile next to the half-empty bottle of Chanel Number Five. By the time she was done, the tears had stopped, and she wiped her face clean with a tissue, and used the tissue and perfume bottle to sweep the gray hairs into the papyrus trash bin at her feet.

She cast a look into the mirror one last time before moving to lie among the thin cotton blankets of the unmade bed.

In the soft curtained light she thought she looked fifteen years younger. She had been twenty when she had married Alfred. Twenty and as thin as a reed, with hipbones jutting from her abdomen and breasts the size of young lemons. She closed her eyes and kept the image of her twenty year old body in her mind as she loosed the sash of her kimono.

This time she allowed her hands to travel along her skin, unhurried and aimless. Her ribs, her belly, her thighs. At first she did not think of anything in particular, but when she slid her fingers under the waistband of her panties, she began to think of Ardeth Bay.

He was a handsome man, but so was Alfred in his youth, with his green eyes and perfect cheekbones leading to a firm and shapely mouth. No, she found herself ruminating over his imperfections as she dipped her fingers into the nest of hair at the juncture between her legs.

His ears were too large, and his mouth was too soft, like that of a woman's. His shoulders were exceedingly wide, and when he walked she was reminded of the prowling of a wild animal. His scent, too, was that of an animal: dark and musky and bitter. The scent that her husband and his colleagues ritually cleansed themselves of in the shower every day, multiple times a day, scrubbing themselves until they were as odorless as a photograph.

And then Marjorie began to think of her husband, and of how he was shifting uneasily in the intolerably hot pews of the packed church, and somehow her arousal began to diminish, and she was only barely able to push herself to a quiet climax.

Tension, release.

She exhaled her disappointment.

It was hot and stuffy inside of the bedroom, and her hands were slick with her fluid. She unfolded herself from the bed and shuffled into the bathroom to wash.

TO BE CONTINUED…


	5. Chapter 5

BUSINESS

Summary: The wife of the curator of the British Museum meets Med-Jai warrior Ardeth Bay. Ardeth, OC.

Category: Angst, drama, romance.

Rating: M

Author's note: Please note that the "M (eventually)" rating has now changed to M. It's also going to get a lot darker from here on in. Thank you for reading, and please review! I'm grateful for any reviews, positive, neutral, or negative.

Chapter Five

She did not see Ardeth Bay for all of the following week. She read in the courtyard and drank coffee in the lobby, and stared out of the window at the policemen bickering with the Tuareg and Bedouin traders who would come every morning to peddle second-rate silver to British women at three to four times their real price. On Friday afternoon she convinced Alfred to take her to the souk with him, where she weaved among the crowds of vendors and tourists and purchased some translucent silk scarves for herself, and a clever wooden puzzle box for Charlie.

She read the instructions and moved the magnetic key in a simple pattern on top of the box lid, and placed a gold coin inside of the box. Then she threw away the instructions and gave the sealed box to Charlie.

At dusk she sat in the courtyard at the base of a palm tree with Charlie in her lap, and drank iced tea as Charlie attempted to pry open the lid. After ten minutes, the boy lost interest and began to play with his plastic soldiers, arranging the blue British army and maroon Egyptian army in opposite rows facing each other.

"I want to be England," he said.

They took turns flicking pebbles at the soldiers, and Marjorie purposely misdirected her aim so that Charlie could win, and at the end of the game the Egyptian army was in shambles while only several soldiers of the British front line had fallen.

Then Charlie ran in circles around the palm tree, whooping: "I killed the rag-heads! We win! We win!"

"Charles, come here."

She caught him on the third lap and collected him into her arms. "Who told you to speak like this? Who taught you these words?"

"It's what Dad calls them."

"Don't ever use that phrase again or I will send you to your room without dinner."

"Can I have dinner today?"

"Yes, but only if you promise me not to say that again, ever."

"Promise. Can I have some chocolate biscuits?"

"You can only have two," she said, and he whooped again and ran back into the hotel.

She followed him with her eyes, until he waved back at her from the bedroom window with a biscuit in his hand. She turned around to gather up the plastic soldiers from the ground – and saw him.

He was just a silhouette along the side of some shrubbery, but there was no doubting the fact that this was Ardeth Bay, and that he had been watching her playing with her son for heaven knew how long. An hour. Maybe two.

And it occurred to her that perhaps he hadn't been away this week at all, that perhaps he had been spying on her during this entire time, lurking in the shadows as he watched her dragging a brush through her hair in the mornings, picking at her food during the evenings, staring for hours from her window at the ladies drifting about in the courtyard.

She left the soldiers on the grass and stalked to him. He was standing with his arms crossed in front of his chest.

"What is the meaning of this?" She was furious. No – more embarrassed than furious. Perhaps he had seen her crying that Sunday morning. Touching herself like a teenage boy while everyone else was crammed into pews and taking in the sacred word of God. "Why are you here? What are you trying to do?"

"I'm sorry that you saw me," he said and pivoted on his foot to move away, but she clutched his arm and yanked him back into the shadow.

"I thought you didn't want to play the game."

"I'm not playing."

"Then why are you here? Are you planning to protect me? Is that what you were going to say? Who do you think I am? A stupid little virgin who's willing to believe every word that comes out of a man's mouth?"

"I've already told you what I think you are, Mrs. Harrington. You're a dangerous woman."

"If you're planning to harm my son, I swear that I will kill you."

He snorted. "Do you take me for a beast? Your son has no place in any of this."

"So what is it, then? Why are you here?"

"I'm protecting myself. I'm protecting those artifacts from you and your damned curiosity, brought on by boredom and loneliness and your stupid Western extravagance. Allah knows what you are capable of." He flung his arm and shook free of her hold. "I'm not going to waste my time here any longer, Mrs. Harrington."

She called after him as he walked away: "You will. I'll make your life miserable, Ardeth Bay. I'll convince my husband to hold onto those artifacts no matter what you do. You'll be stuck wandering around this hotel for the rest of your life."

"And so will you," he returned.

TO BE CONTINUED…


	6. Chapter 6

BUSINESS

Summary: The wife of the curator of the British Museum meets Med-Jai warrior Ardeth Bay. Ardeth, OC.

Category: Angst, drama, romance.

Rating: M

Author's note: Any feedback will be treasured for the rest of my life, and keep me going.

Chapter Six

Several nights later she seduced her husband in front of the open window, because she somehow knew that he was out there watching her. She flung him into the wicker chair beside the window and straddled his legs and loosened his belt and took his flushed member between her hands, feeling it harden as she kneaded him.

"Margie—" Beads of sweat were forming on his brow.

"It's been too long."

"But Charlie—"

"He's like a rock when he sleeps."

"The window—"

"It's one in the morning, darling. Everyone is asleep. Besides, it's hot. It will be hot," she said, and kissed him on his forehead.

When he was ready she flung off her shift and lowered her nude figure onto him, relishing in the pain of the swift penetration. She bucked her hips into him and moaned in the dirtiest way she could muster – something between a throaty rasp and a childlike whine. She moaned and cried out to God and heaven and hell with every upward jerk of his hips, and pressed his face into the center of her breasts, reddening her skin with the friction of his unshaven jaw and mustache.

He was too surprised to do anything but to drive himself into her with strangled grunts. At one point, he began, "Margie, what did you say—" but she broke him off with a cry.

"Fuck me harder," she said, though the force of their thrusting was stifling off any chance of a climax. "Fuck me harder."

"Margie—"

"Say it, Alfred. Say fuck. Say dirty words."

He did, while staring up at her with a face that was as flushed as a beet, while his saliva flew from his mouth and flecked his lips, his chin.

She continued moaning, and somewhere in the distance, a dog barked. She gazed out into the darkness and licked her lips and slammed herself like a wrecking ball against her husband until, quite suddenly, he let out a strangled cry and clutched her to him as his body convulsed in a shiver.

She softly ground herself into him as he rode out his climax.

"My God, Margie," he said at last, and kissed her chest.

She found that she could no longer bear looking into that red, swollen, perspiration-stained face, which was staring up at her like a sated puppy, and pulled herself off of him, letting his seed spill onto the fabric of his khaki trousers.

"Oh, bloody hell—"

She left him there, scrubbing at his pants with his handkerchief, and walked into the bathroom and stood in front of the mirror.

The bruises were already begin to blossom on her skin.

And then suddenly she was crying in silent, wracking sobs that shook her and choked her until her throat was sore with the effort of holding them down, and she lowered herself into the lion-footed bathtub. She didn't turn on the water, only reached down and rubbed the hard nub between her legs until she finally climaxed in a barely stifled cry.

"Margie? Are you all right?"

"I'm taking a shower," she called back, twisting the squealing handle of the faucet. "I slipped."

"Are you hurt?"

"Not at all, darling. Only bumped my knee."

She let the warm water run down her hair and her shoulders, and she raised her head to the stream and mouthed: "Ardeth. Ardeth."

In retrospect it was completely stupid, what she had done, but it was too late now, and she would eventually run into him one morning and all words would escape her.

TO BE CONTINUED…


	7. Chapter 7

BUSINESS

Summary: The wife of the curator of the British Museum meets Med-Jai warrior Ardeth Bay. Ardeth, OC.

Category: Angst, drama, romance.

Rating: M

Author's note: Any feedback will be treasured for the rest of my life, and keep me going.

Chapter Seven

On Saturday morning, it was all the women could talk about. "Did you hear? Last night? The sounds? Heavens, you know what sounds." They were married women and mothers, but they laughed into their lace gloves anyway, as though such degenerate human actions were not their lot, had never been their lot.

Marjorie sat at the sofa in the lobby, looking over the edge of her newspaper at the six wives seated around the table in the far end of the room. Cup after cup of imported Earl Grey tea; the scent of bergamot was filling the air.

"I wonder who it was."

"Arabs, of course. I heard they were insatiable when it comes to… you know."

"No, it was in the Queen's English. I heard them myself."

"Then I wonder if…"

They weren't looking at her directly – they were too polite to deliver such direct accusations – but she felt their eyes anyway, boring like drills into the top of her head.

"What do you think you are doing?" A quiet baritone at her ear.

She turned around and saw Ardeth Bay standing behind her, staring at her with brown eyes that were so shaded under the fringe of heavy lashes that they were almost black.

She managed to swallow down her surprise. "Reading today's newspaper and enjoying the day. Ardeth, why are you—"

"What did you think you were doing last night?" he said under his breath, and she finally understood his meaning. Her heart twisted inside of her, and she became distinctly aware of the silence now that filled the lobby. The women at the tables were staring shamelessly like infants.

She tried to flash a smile at the Med-Jai – do something to make the women cringe, or twitter, or cover their rouged mouths in shock – but nothing happened. "It's none of your business, Ardeth Bay. What happened between my husband and me is private. How dare you—"

"Private?" He rounded the sofa and took a seat next to her. The sofa cushions dipped with his weight, and she steeled herself against the armrest. "You announced your activities to the entire hotel."

"You should have turned the other way and played dumb like any civilized man."

"Like any British man? Should I smile to your face, and say madam, and if you please, and then go amongst my brothers to talk about you behind your back?"

"Civilized society is run on lies, Ardeth. Just look at the women behind you."

He didn't. "Mrs. Harrington, if what you did last night was your way of seducing me, you are making a grave mistake."

"You? Seducing _you_?" she said, injecting as much offended incredulity into her tone as she could. "You think too highly of yourself, Med-Jai. And how dare you suggest that I don't love my husband?"

"You were calling my name."

"I was _not_."

"You were."

Had she? She suddenly remembered how a fleeting frown had come across Alfred's countenance as she rode him: "Margie, what did you say?"

"Jesus," she whispered. Then she held the Med-Jai's gaze and forced herself not to look away. "It meant nothing."

"Naturally."

"I knew you were out there, snooping around like a rat. It was meant to provoke you. I must have done an excellent job."

"You've done an excellent job of potentially setting your husband's fury against me, Mrs. Harrington," he replied. His voice was tense. "You are not worth the situation that might stem from this."

"My husband couldn't have noticed. He was getting his brains fucked out at the time," she said.

He flinched at her words. "You are not worth the—"

She cut him off with a laugh. "I know. I am not worth the fate of your precious relics," she said. "So prove it." She smiled at him. "Prove it to me in bed."

"You've gone too far, Mrs. Harrington."

"And so have you, Ardeth Bay," she countered, and tilted her chin to the group of women now huddled together, whispering like spirits. "They think we've been rutting like the horses in the stables for weeks. They fantasize about us when they're getting pinned by their husbands, and they imagine themselves to be in my place. And then they go to church on Sundays to pray to God."

"Have you no shame?"

"What about you? When you were looking at me last night, why didn't you turn away? Why did you stay there, analyzing my every move? Did you think about me when you worked yourself with your hand?"

He was silent, his features fogged with anger.

"We've both gone too far, Ardeth. You weren't spying on me because you were worried about a damned museum artifact. You were spying on me because you wanted this day to happen. Admit it."

"The basement. At noon."

"What?"

"You heard me." He got up from the sofa and grinned at her, widely, and then said in a loud voice: "Thank you for passing on the message from your husband, Mrs. Harrington. I'll be sure to take it into consideration."

"And send my warmest regards to your wife, Ardeth Bay," she replied, matching his grin, and extended her hand.

He shook it with a force that traveled all the way to her elbow, and the grin hardened upon his mouth, and he said: "Good morning, Mrs. Harrington."

And then he was gone, and there were only the women now, gasping among themselves as though they had witnessed the most shocking event of the week.

TO BE CONTINUED…


	8. Chapter 8

BUSINESS

Summary: The wife of the curator of the British Museum meets Med-Jai warrior Ardeth Bay. Ardeth, OC.

Category: Angst, drama, romance.

Rating: M

Author's note: Any feedback will be treasured for the rest of my life, and keep me going.

Chapter Eight

When she approached the study, she paused at the doorway and watched her husband and her son. They didn't notice her; a bespectacled Alfred was sitting in an easy chair and narrating from a tattered copy of _Winnie the Pooh,_ while Charlie was sprawled out onto the coffee table, pushing crayons across a sheet of butcher paper.

Charlie saw her first and picked himself up from the floor and ran to her, flapping the sheet of paper in front of him: "Who is this, Mum? Who is it?"

Blobs of yellow and brown.

"Winnie the Pooh?" Marjorie guessed, and when he nodded, she pulled him to her in an embrace. His tousled blond head rested upon her stomach, smelling faintly of milk and chocolate biscuits.

She suddenly felt the urge to weep.

The study, with its imported mahogany bookshelves and Persian rugs, reminded her of London, and she told herself to end the entire damned game with Ardeth Bay. At this moment the Med-Jai seemed almost repulsive to her, now that her son was pressed to her stomach and her husband was staring at her from behind a pair of reading glasses.

In an hour she could be sitting over a game of crosswords, or peering across the courtyard in search of Tuareg traders. A cup of Earl Grey between her palms.

"Are you all right?" her husband asked, and she smiled and told him she was simply feeling under the weather.

Charlie wriggled loose from her arms; cool air filled the space between them. "Dad, can we go see the camel races with Mum?"

"Your mother's tired today," her husband said. "We can go tomorrow, after church."

"But you promised—"

"Your mother's tired, Charles. Be a good gentleman."

"Alfred," she said.

"Darling?"

"Don't speak on my behalf."

He gaped at her, blinking rapidly. "Darling, but I was—"

"Honestly, I never said I wasn't going to go."

"All right. If you're feeling up to it, then we can go. I was just—"

"You were just making my decisions for me, like you've done for every bloody day since we've arrived in this god forsaken country." She rubbed her face with her hands and found that her cheeks were burning, and moist with tears. "I can't take this anymore, Alfred. I simply bloody can't."

"Marjorie, will you stop? Our son is right here."

"Charles, go to the lobby downstairs and find Samira. She'll take you down to the courtyard. Be a good boy."

She watched as her son ran mutely past her in a jumble of arms and legs, and pinned Alfred under her glare until she heard the front door close. Then she said: "I'll see you at supper."

"Where do you think you're going in the meantime?"

"Out," she answered, and started down the hall.

She was halfway to the bedroom when Alfred reached her. "You're staying," he said, and boxed her across the ear.

Marjorie closed her eyes against the burning pain, and waited until the shrill ringing had subsided inside her skull. She opened her eyes and saw that her husband was crying. "Do you love me, Alfred?" she said. "Or are you just being a good gentleman?"

A teardrop was glistening at the end of his mustache. "I need you."

"For my mothering. For my cooking. For my sex. But do you really love me, Alfred? All of me?"

When he didn't answer, she walked into the bedroom and closed the door behind her. She waited at the dresser until the red swelling left her eyes, then slipped out of her dress and smeared a generous amount of gardenia lotion over every part of her body that she could reach. She then wrapped herself into the white kimono with the red and black cherry blossoms, and powdered her face with loose foundation.

As she rose to leave, she spied a tube of lipstick on the dresser, and briefly considered staining her lips dark maroon. But then she remembered the ambassadors' wives – perfect ladies under dainty satin parasols, innocently pursing their rouged lips at passing male strangers while expecting nothing in return – and decided against it.

She did not own a parasol, and she was not a lady. Not anymore.

TO BE CONTINUED…


	9. Chapter 9

BUSINESS

Summary: The wife of the curator of the British Museum meets Med-Jai warrior Ardeth Bay. Ardeth, OC.

Category: Angst, drama, romance.

Rating: M

Author's note: Any feedback will be treasured for the rest of my life, and keep me going.

Chapter Nine

"Come with me," he said. His voice echoed in the darkness and bounced off of the mildewing bottles of imported wine that lined the wooden racks. "I've considered what you suggested. I'll take you to my tribe and deliver you back to this hotel once your husband returns the artifacts to us."

"A kidnap? You had me come here to plan a kidnap?"

He struck a match and brought the flame to a candle. His somber face was orange in the dim light; the shadows weaved among the designs on his cheeks and forehead. "Of course," he said. "Were you expecting something else?" And his lips curled into a smile.

Wildly, she thought of stripping off her kimono in front of him. Crushing her lips to his in a kiss. Taking his manhood in her grip and driving him until his hot seed flowed down the backs of her hand. Boxing him across the ear like Alfred had done to her. But she remained motionless, unable to move from his dark eyes. Finally, she said: "All right. I accept."

He studied her in silence. "No."

She was surprised, confused. "But you—"

"Something has happened."

"What?"

"Your eyes are haunted. You've lost someone during this past hour."

"I don't understand."

"Is it your husband?"

"Is it—" The laugh that bubbled up from within her sounded ghastly to her ears. "Why does it matter to you? I'm leverage. Alfred hates me, but he needs me like a baby needs his mother. He's too afraid to let me go. He'll rescue me on your terms." She laughed again. "Silly old Alfred."

"Go back to your hotel room."

"Why should I?"

"You're not leverage, Mrs. Harrington. Not anymore. You're a sad woman in need of a desert warrior to whisk you off into a distant oasis." Ardeth Bay smiled. "I'm not going to take you anywhere."

She could only seethe at him. "Damn you. No. Fuck you."

"I'm only playing this game by your rules, Mrs. Harrington."

"The longer you keep this going, the longer you'll suffer."

"Perhaps. But isn't that what you want?"

She stepped back from him and headed for the stairs. "I've had enough of you. I'm leaving."

"Good," he called after her. "Apologize to your husband. Make love to him in front of the open window and wake up half of Cairo. Then we can discuss—"

She stopped in her tracks and spun around. "Apologize to Alfred? You stupid Med-Jai – you don't know the half of it."

"I know that he's your husband—"

"And I should honor that bastard like a god," she finished. She ascended the stairs and glanced down at Ardeth Bay's shadowed figure. There was a subtle aspect about his expression that had changed, and she realized distantly that he was on the verge of saying something, but she was certain somehow that whatever he planned say would undo her entirely. "Keep your honor, Ardeth Bay," she said. "Don't sully your hands with a married woman."

TO BE CONTINUED…


	10. Chapter 10

BUSINESS

Summary: The wife of the curator of the British Museum meets Med-Jai warrior Ardeth Bay. Ardeth, OC.

Category: Angst, drama, romance.

Rating: M

Author's note: Any feedback will be treasured for the rest of my life, and keep me going.

Chapter Ten

He was gone. He was gone completely. The hairs on the back of her neck no longer trembled when she gazed out into the night, and she found herself sitting in the lobby for hours, staring blindly into newspapers and starting at every dark shape that fluttered into the edges of her vision. But they would always be porters, or ambassadors, or the occasional nomadic craftsman who managed to creep past the guards at the front gates.

Not him. Never him.

She took to knitting, and purchased rolls of crudely dyed indigo wool yarn from a Tuareg woman, and began to work on a scarf for Charlie: an inky, uneven, hideous thing that ribboned around the bedroom like a serpent. She took to drinking bourbon during supper. He became a shadow that muddled her mind – a shadow that was faceless and nameless – but she could not erase him no matter how hard she tried.

She took to crying while her husband slept beside her.

One evening Alfred bounded into the bedroom like a child and said: "Those bloody rag-heads are finally relenting, darling. We're going home. Those artifacts are staying where they belong."

And through the ache that suddenly clawed at her chest she began to convince herself that she was happy at the news.

"Good old England, Margie. Rain and fog and civilized people. We should go out to the marketplace to celebrate with Charlie. Our last hurrah in this wretched city, my darling."

And so the next morning she packed a picnic hamper with ham and cheese sandwiches and bottles of lemonade, and they made for the nearest souk.

They lost themselves in the heat and the sour stink of animals and people. Alfred purchased a small, silver dagger for himself – "A little gift for defeating those Med-Jai," he proclaimed – and bought Charlie a miniature instrument that had strings like a guitar. She bought nothing for herself, but did not object when Alfred hooked two heavy silver earrings into the holes of her earlobes. They resembled chandeliers, and at the end of the numerous tassels hung tiny bells that jingled when she moved.

"Are you all right?" Alfred said when they had walked for nearly an hour. "You look preoccupied."

"What?"

"Preoccupied, darling. I said you look preoccupied."

"Hardly. A little tired. But Charlie doesn't seem ready to sit down just yet."

"You're always tired," he remarked, easily. "You've been tired for the past three weeks. I wonder if it's a woman thing."

"Excuse me?"

He wasn't looking at her. "I wonder if you're hiding something."

"Honestly, Alfred. Is this the time and place?"

He faced her, a spark in his eyes. "Why don't you look like you're ever here, Marjorie? Why do you still look like you're a million miles away? Are the earrings not enough? Is the victory of our museum not enough? What more can I do?"

"Honestly…"

Suddenly, she saw him. He was standing several feet behind her husband, next to a wrinkled vendor hawking beaded leather slippers. The crowd pulsed in waves in front of his tattooed face. Men in turbans, women in veils, camels.

Ardeth Bay was staring straight into her eyes.

"Marjorie, you're still not listening to me. Why? Why are you ruining this day?"

"I just…"

He seemed like he had sprung from her imagination, and she couldn't tear herself away from the Med-Jai's gaze. "Alfred—"

"Wake up!" And he slapped her for the second time since their arrival in Cairo.

Oh God, he saw. That was the first and only thing on Marjorie's mind as the hotness flared across her left cheek. He saw.

"Alfred," she said, turning to her husband, a sudden desire to leave overtaking her. Leave the pressure of those burning eyes. "That's enough. I don't want to stay here anymore."

"Mum, Mum." Charlie was pulling at the hem of her dress. "Dad said there's a chicken fight starting down the street. I want to see."

"It's out of the question."

"But Mum…"

"Charlie, that's hardly appropriate," she began. Then she looked down into his upturned face. "You know, all right, darling. I'll go with you."

"Don't be ridiculous, Margie. It's a man's sport. Women aren't allowed to watch a chicken fight in this bloody country."

"All right. You take him."

"Oh, but will it be appropriate when I take him, my pumpkin? Will it be moral and righteous and—"

"I think it's best if you leave me alone for a period of time, Alfred," she said. "It's a woman thing. I'm tired."

Charlie was yanking at her dress again. "I don't want to go if you don't."

"I love you," she said to him with an unexpected surge of emotion. She cupped his warm face between her hands, and felt her heart squeeze at the pure beauty of this child: the boy, her son. "But I can't go with you. Not this time."

"If you get lost, go back to the hotel," Alfred said. "Come on, soldier. Let's go see the chickens."

"I'll be right here, Charlie," she repeated, and her husband took her son upon his shoulders, and the two of them faded into the throng of shifting bodies.

She willed herself not to cry.

She didn't cry when he walked to her. She didn't cry when he motioned to her with only a nod; simply followed him, dream-like, past the vendors and the stalls, the earrings pulling at her earlobes and jingling with every footfall.

He led her under the tattered awnings of a sunbaked alleyway, and turned the corners of the mud-bricked homes. The sounds and the smells of the souk were fading. A few ancient men and women stared at them from doorways as they passed, their eyes startlingly white against brown, leathery skin.

The alleyways grew narrower and what few people there were disappeared from view, and when they finally reached the dead end, he pressed her to the wall with the entirety of his body.

She studied the faint lines at the corners of his eyes, the fullness of his lips. His beard was thick and closely cropped, and she noticed some faint sprinklings of gray along his chin; perhaps they were new, or perhaps she had simply never seen him at such close proximity.

She ran the fingertips of both hands over the tattoos on his cheeks.

Blue-black. Subtle variations of saturation in the ink, and blurring faintly at the edges. She was surprised that the tattooed portions of his skin didn't feel any different from the rest of his face: warm and tough, and slightly moist with perspiration and oil.

He ran a hand up her stocking-clad thigh, the calluses of his fingertips audibly snagging the nylon in little pinprick pulls. He reached the end of the stockings, and she felt him run his touch over the bands and the clasps of the garter. Through the thin cotton of her underwear, she felt the heat of his palm hovering at her womanhood.

She slid her hands from his face and grappled futilely with the unfamiliar design of his belt, his sash, the countless black layers of his clothing. He was already firm, and she took him through the loose linen of his trousers, but he pried her fingers away and unfastened his belt and released himself.

He was larger than Alfred, and dark. The veins that ran the length of him were almost purple.

She bunched her skirt to her waist, and parted her legs, and he hooked aside her soaked underwear and pushed himself into her.

He was tall, and she felt herself being lifted from the ground with the force of him. She managed to wrap one leg, then the other, around his thighs; he held her buttocks within the span of his hands, and kept her pressed to the wall with his body.

His thrusts were forceful and deep and controlled, unlike her own natural rhythm, which would fall impatiently apart into erratic jerks whenever the pleasure built within her. He was a warrior, she remembered. A chief. Perhaps this was how he fought.

The climax was rising quickly, hot and almost painful; Marjorie gripped his shoulders and bit into his neck to keep from crying out. Her earrings were swinging against her jaw, the tiny bells clanging together.

Through the small alley in the distance, she saw an old woman emerging with a wicker basket spilling over with laundry. She was eighty, maybe ninety, and she craned her head to them immediately, and Marjorie looked at her as she looked back, her weathered face dispassionate and unchanging.

The English woman being pinioned, standing, by a Med-Jai.

A thin sigh escaped her; she was nearly there.

And then the old woman turned away, and retreated from where she came, and Marjorie hurriedly grabbed Ardeth Bay's face so that she could stare into his eyes when he pushed her over the edge.

Sweat had beaded on his forehead and trickled into his lashes.

"Oh," she said, and her entire body shook as she climaxed, her muscles convulsing and falling apart as the heat from her core suffused her in a flood.

He pushed against her several times, slowly, then suddenly gave several swift thrusts, and let out a soft murmur from the back of his throat, and was still for a long time, panting heavily into the crook of her neck, and then the earrings slowly fell silent, and all she heard now was the distant humming of the souk and the inhale and exhale of their breaths.

She caressed his shoulder blades. She took in the musky scent of his dampened hair. When he withdrew from her, she caught the fluids of the aftermath in her underwear.

She smoothed her clothes in place, and they walked back through the alley, past the eyes of the old men and women in the doorways.

He nodded to her once more when they reached the slipper vendor in the souk.

Perhaps she should say something now, Marjorie realized. Something. Anything. She finally decided that she should kiss him, but when she leaned forward he only touched her left cheek with the heel of his palm. Then he stepped backwards into the crowd and was gone.

She bought a pair of beaded slippers from the vendor without bothering to talk down the exorbitant price, and stood there until Alfred and Charlie returned.

"Well? How were the chickens, Charlie? Did you have a good time?"

"Oh, for God's sake, Margie. I shouldn't have done that earlier and you know I'm sorry. Don't make a scene now. Not in front of our son."

She stared at her husband. "What do you mean?"

"Wipe up your tears, darling," he replied. "You know Charles hates it when you cry."

TO BE CONTINUED…


	11. Chapter 11

BUSINESS

Summary: The wife of the curator of the British Museum meets Med-Jai warrior Ardeth Bay. Ardeth, OC.

Category: Angst, drama, romance.

Rating: M

Author's note: Any feedback will be treasured for the rest of my life, and keep me going.

Chapter Eleven

The next evening, Alfred was furious. "Bloody Med-Jai."

He stalked into the bedroom with a steaming teacup and sank into the nearest chair, flinging the teacup onto the coffee table and steepling the tips of his slender fingers to his mustache. "They have cancelled the artifact agreement. Typical of the heathens. I don't know why I should be so surprised."

Marjorie let the newspaper softly drop into her lap, and folded it in half, creasing the seam with the edge of her fingernail. She folded it in half again. Then she said: "Why?"

"Damned if I know."

"Is he – are they – allowed to back out of an agreement like this? Can't you impose legal action?"

"Of course not. It was never signed on paper. It was a spoken agreement between me and the chiefs. We were expecting to sign today."

"But then?"

"But then the bloody bastard Ardeth Bay returned from a bloody skirmish with the bloody Belgians in bloody Alexandria."

The name sounded like a malediction coming from her husband's mouth, and Marjorie experienced an involuntary shudder of distaste at the way he had squeezed it so nasally into the air. Ardeth, Ardeth, Ardeth, she thought. She realized that she didn't want anyone else to say it except for her, in secret hours.

Ardeth.

"And he's the leader of the tribes, darling? The most powerful chief? Is that right?"

"Yes, and he said no. He's swearing up and down that he and his men will keep on pursuing their rightful property until we relent. It's going to be a war, Margie. Innocent British blood will be wasted on those damned heathen trinkets."

"Darling, please. Don't be melodramatic. It doesn't become you. The only thing that will be wasted in this is time."

"We'll be stuck here until we rot, and they'll mummify us, Margie." His eyelids were fluttering incessantly, like dusty moths' wings. "They'll mummify us and sell our bodies in the souks to tourists."

She listened to the lazy thud-thud-thud of the ceiling fan revolving above her, and waited until his frustration abated. "So we'll still be living here, I suppose," she said when she could no longer keep her silence. "We won't be traveling back to England this week. We'll be here until this affair blows over."

"I could positively die."

"This Ardeth fellow…" she said. She halved the newspaper again, and pressed down on the crease, leaving a smear of black ink against her thumb. "He must be a passionate man."

"You know how the tribesmen are."

"Passionate?"

"Passionate."

And now she found it difficult to continue looking at the red and peeling and sunburned face of her husband; she dipped her head down to the newspaper in her lap. Underneath it, underneath her dress, she could feel him still. A dull ache that reminded her of him with every step.

She couldn't look at her husband.

"He's an insistent man," she said. "He's willing to fight for what he believes."

"Bother." He grunted. "It almost sounds like you're defending the son of a bitch."

Ardeth, Ardeth, Ardeth. The jingling of her earrings as he had thrust against her. He had been large, but it had only truly hurt when he had pulled himself from her. The slick suction of his exit, the collapse and emptiness within her as he had lowered her to the ground.

"Don't be absurd, darling," she said. "I'm merely playing the devil's advocate. Keep your friends close, but keep your enemies closer, as they say."

"Well, don't keep him too close, or you'll catch lice."

"Really, Alfred. You can be quite the gentleman."

"I can be something else, too," he responded, leaning forward in his chair and trapping her hand within his. "I can be passionate."

His skin was smooth and cool, and she found that she was giggling, giggling as she pulled away from that unmarred softness. "Stop it, you."

"Charlie's gone with Samira for the rest of the day."

"Not now, darling."

"Margie, I need this. Do what you did that night, in front of the window."

"I'm on my cycle, Alfred," she said. "No."

His smile withered and he withdrew his hand and grasped for the teacup beside him on the coffee table. He lifted it to his lips and said above the brim of porcelain: "Do you think he's a handsome man?"

"Who? Rudolph Valentino? Of course."

"Bully on Rudolph Valentino. I meant Ardeth Bay."

"Darling, he's abhorrent. He has tattoos on his face. His hair is longer than mine. Does he even speak our language, or does he simply chatter on in Arabic?"

"He speaks English quite fluently, in fact."

"I wouldn't have known. How is Charlie? Is he going to the pyramids?"

"He is a handsome man, you know, for a tattooed Arab," Alfred said. "It almost covers up the fact that he's desert scum."

"If you say so, darling."

"Do you know Richard Thurston?" he asked. "The professor of English at the University of Cairo?"

"He lives on the fifth floor with his wife, Elaine, I believe."

"Elaine lusts after the tattooed bastard, even though she's only seen him twice."

"How do you know?"

"Richard discovered her diary last week. He read it. It was positively lurid. He told me over tea that she had the literary skills of a pornographer, his wife. The poor fellow almost drowned himself in drink."

An inexplicable anger took hold of her, and Marjorie furled her hands into fists to keep from tearing at the newspaper. "How unfortunate, Alfred."

"I agree. Who knew that behind the gentlewomanly exterior was a filthy little—"

"How unfortunate that her husband found the need to read her diary."

"Don't tell anybody, Margie. We have our appearances to keep up, as do the Thurstons. Poor man."

"Would you read my diary if you found it?"

"Margie, you don't keep a diary." He swallowed the rest of his tea. "I say she's a whore."

TO BE CONTINUED…


	12. Chapter 12

BUSINESS

Summary: The wife of the curator of the British Museum meets Med-Jai warrior Ardeth Bay. Ardeth, OC.

Category: Angst, drama, romance.

Rating: M

Author's note: Any feedback will be treasured for the rest of my life, and keep me going.

Chapter Twelve

She did not see him for a three days after their meeting in the souk, and the hours passed in a haze of books and plastic soldiers, and she realized that she was marking time by the presence or absence of Ardeth Bay, and that she had been doing it all along, since the first encounter.

So when she saw him again in the courtyard at dusk, standing at the opposite end of the fountain and conversing with an indigo-clad Tuareg, she closed the history book she had been reading and rose from Alfred's side.

He glanced up at her from his soldiers' game with Charlie. "Are you going in? It's cooler out here."

"The light's failing, darling," she responded, and walked into the lobby, past the porters and the English guests, past the guards preoccupied with the latest strings of gossip, until she ducked into an annex and descended into the cellar.

She waited, sitting on her book in the far corner of the room, for him to arrive.

He did.

The door opened, and closed, and she heard the click of the lock being turned. It was as dark as pitch, but she suddenly sensed his warmth at her side. He was sitting beside her but did not touch her; he only said: "So."

"That time, Ardeth, when you disappeared for weeks. Were you really in Alexandria, fighting the Belgians like my husband said? Or was it because of me?"

"Mrs. Harrington, do you also think that Mark Antony sailed to Egypt because of you?" he countered, but his tone carried no trace of anger. "Believe what makes you satisfied."

"I believe that you were squirreled away in your tent in the desert, pulling out your hair in la douleur d'amour."

The cloth of his clothing rustled, and then she felt the roughness of his hand enclosing hers, and he guided her fingertips through the collar of his tunic until she was touching the hot skin of his shoulder.

She felt the hard, textured contours of a thick scab, an inch in diameter, standing starkly against the curve of his collarbone.

"I was in Alexandria," he said.

He removed her hand.

"Does it hurt?"

"No."

She nudged him with her elbow. "You arrogant bastard. Of course it does. You were shot. The pain probably wakes you up at night."

"Perhaps."

"Did it hurt you when we were together in that alley?" she said, and he did not reply.

She said: "Do you feel guilty, knowing that you broke the contract because of me, and not because of your loyalties to your tribe?"

"There was no contract."

"You allowed my husband to keep the artifacts because you wanted me gone. You wanted this whole situation to end so I could return to England, out of your sight. Now you're breaking the contract because you want me to—"

"There was no contract," he repeated. She detected the suppressed tension in his voice. "The decision was made jointly by me and my brethren."

"You fancy me," she declared, "but you're going to say that you fucked me out of pity, because you saw my husband slug me in the jaw."

She heard the sharp intake of his breath, and sat waiting in the silence that followed. Then: "Who taught you to speak like this, Mrs. Harrington?"

"For God's sake, can you call me Marjorie?"

"No."

"You've already put yourself inside of me and yet you can't call me Marjorie?"

"Correct."

"Can you call me habibi, or desert rose, or your little pumpkin?"

"I could, if I needed to be cruel."

"Do you think that if you don't talk about it, then everything will resolve itself? Do you think that as long as you call me Mrs. Harrington, this entire thing wouldn't exist?"

"Mrs. Harrington, if you insist that I call you pumpkin, then I will gladly call you pumpkin."

"Go to hell, Ardeth." The anger that surged into her made her bold, and she fumbled for him in the darkness. This time, the belt yielded with a sharp jerk, and she snaked her hand inside and grasped him. "Why are you here?"

His breath hitched; he had hardened almost instantaneously with her touch, and now she softly explored the velvety warm length of him, from the nest of coarse, wiry hair to the delicate tip, which was moist with the drops of his arousal.

"Is this why you're here?"

He whispered words she couldn't understand.

Still bold, she nestled her body into him like a young thing, and he said, "Stop," and she expected that the arm he curled around her was to pull her away, but he merely left her there with her head nestled the space between his chest and his chin, and the arm remained wrapped around her shoulders. Not holding her. Just there.

She teased him with feather-light, infuriatingly slow strokes – brushing him rather than holding him – and she felt his frustration rippling tensely through his body.

He bucked his hips.

"Call me Marjorie," she said.

"No."

"It will be like this until you call me Marjorie."

"I can finish the task myself. I can go to the women in the streets."

"Then do it. Leave right now."

He remained still.

"You're here because you fancy me," she said, running a fingertip along the hill of a blood vessel. "You hate this but you fancy me."

"You have the soul of a scorpion, Marjorie." And he took her hand and brought it to her side.

He shifted his weight onto her, and laid her onto the concrete floor. She felt him lowering himself beside her. He propped his elbow upon the floor and rested his head in his palm, and with his other hand he traced her leg to dip into the slickness of her center.

And despite herself she cried out at the coarseness of his touch – so entirely different from her own delicate hand, and Alfred's – and he moved against her, gliding across the hard nub between the folds of her skin. And she felt her orgasm building under his slow rhythm, and she reached to take him back into her hands, and they moved closer, and then they were connected once more.

She was shuddering in her climax before he had slid entirely within her; he thrust into her, once, twice, and she felt the abrupt pressure of his release.

"Don't," she said when he began to pull himself away. "Not now."

They lay on their sides, her head atop his arm.

"I heard a rumor about you the other day," she said. "Alfred tells me that a woman by the name of Elaine Thurston fancies you."

"I do not know her."

"She knows you because she saw you several times at this hotel. She's twenty-five, and she married an old English professor in Cairo out of convenience. Every night she dreams of you inside of her, like this. She looks like Ophelia in the painting by Millais. Do you know the one?"

"No."

"She's extraordinarily beautiful. She's ten years younger than me, and she wants you. Should I be worried for my sake? Ardeth?"

She felt him trembling, and for a moment she wondered if he was cold against the concrete, but then she stroked the contours of his face and realized that he was shaking because he was laughing.

TO BE CONTINUED…


	13. Chapter 13

BUSINESS

Summary: The wife of the curator of the British Museum meets Med-Jai warrior Ardeth Bay. Ardeth, OC.

Category: Angst, drama, romance.

Rating: M

Author's note: Any feedback will be treasured for the rest of my life, and keep me going. Let me also reiterate that none of the "facts" in the following chapter is real, and that I'm just making random stuff up for the sake of plot.

Chapter Thirteen

"Ardeth, do you believe in God?" she asked him as he raised himself from the bathtub.

The suds and water sloughed off of the planes of his chest, the broad pectorals emblazoned with blue-black tattoos of triangular claws. Thin lines of scars, some pale and some red, thatched his sun-darkened skin. The bullet wound rose from the hollow of his collarbone, and the water tumbled in rivulets around it as though it were an island.

"Where do you think you're going, Med-Jai?" She pushed at his chest with her foot; he splashed back to his place opposite her, and the water brimmed over the edges of the tub. "You can stay for at least an hour longer."

Under the surface, his hand traced circles over her knee.

She said: "You haven't answered my question."

"Why do you ask, my inquisitive friend?"

"Because at this moment my husband and my son are three miles away, praying to God and singing his praises from a hymn book. So do you believe in God? The one inside that church?"

"Yes. I also believe that Allah has many names, and resides in many places. The pyramids were not built for man's glory alone."

"Then you must believe in the ancient Egyptian myths too."

"Only they are not so ancient," he replied, and smiled. "What about you?"

"No." She studied him, studied his brown eyes that were flecked with green in the sunlight soaking through the window. "Will you preach to me now?"

"No."

"Why not?"

"Mere preaching will not turn unbelievers into believers, or believers into unbelievers."

"You won't talk to me about Allah? You won't tell me how you've seen him in the desert? Or how he rescued you from that bullet that could have gone into your heart and killed you?"

The smile lingered upon his lips. "No."

"I'm damned, aren't I?" she said. "Either way I'm damned. If there is a god, I'll be burning in hell for this, and if there isn't, then all of this won't matter, and I'll be rotting in the ground with the worms, and so will you."

His face was now somber; he held her gaze until she couldn't bear it any longer, and she turned to stare at a lone soap bubble that was floating in the water between them, and when she spoke, her throat was sore with the thorn that had snagged inside of it. "I've been thinking lately. Am I a bad woman, Ardeth Bay?"

"Marjorie," he said, and nothing more. He sat up and glided to her, and gathered her to his chest, and enclosed his arms around her. She noticed how his palm was smoothing over the flaring red bruise on the base of her neck that fifteen minutes ago he had caused by scraping his teeth against her in his climax. She let her gaze travel to his eyes, and saw that they were bright, and rimmed with red.

And this frightened her, somehow, more than anything.

"Ardeth, really. It's not so bad."

He touched his mouth to the wound.

"It'll go away in a few hours. I'll wear a scarf. Nobody will notice."

"Forgive me."

"You're forgiven."

"Marjorie," he murmured into her hair, "I've seen… things… that have made me believe. Many years ago in the desert."

"Were you lost and alone and dying? Did you pray, and did Allah send you an oasis?"

"I was never lost. I was among friends. I saw the devil."

At this, she grinned up at him, brushed a blossom of soap suds away from his cheek. "Did he come in the form of an evil mummy? Did he have a curse? Did he rise from the dead and chase after you?"

He matched her grin. "Yes."

"Let me guess. Was there a mummy army as well?"

"Of course. It was the army of Anubis. Thousands upon thousands of undead canine soldiers rose from the sand and attacked our small band of Med-Jai warriors. We were dying, but they could not be defeated. But then we prayed, and fate finally smiled upon us, and we drove them back to the underworld, where they remain to this day."

"Oh, that's positively rich. You should tell this story to the Med-Jai children one day. I know that my Charlie loves these stories."

"Then I shall consider it."

"But you never said why the mummy had a curse placed upon him in the first place. No, that's a stupid question. He must have always been evil and cursed. He was the devil, after all."

"No, he was not – he was not always evil."

"Then what happened to him?"

"He fell in love with the wrong woman," he said.

She swallowed. "And then?"

"And the pharaoh, to whom the woman was married, discovered them. And she killed herself, and the pharaoh cursed both their souls with the wrath of the gods for all eternity."

"Silly me," she said, rising. "The water's getting cold. We should probably—"

He continued holding her to him; she felt the thin ridges of his scars against her skin. "I have also experienced things, Marjorie, that have made me doubt."

She realized that her heart was pounding too heavily inside of her. "Like what?"

"When I pledged myself to be of the order of the Med-Jai, I knew – I _knew_ from the depths of my soul – that following the code of the Med-Jai was my destiny. It was a calling from Allah. I was chosen by Allah for the purity of my soul, for the way I resisted the carnal temptations of the earth. I _knew_ this. I knew this, here." He placed her hand upon his chest.

She felt tears stinging the corners of her eyes. "Please. Stop."

"But now I see you," he said, and let out a small and breathless and trembling whisper of a laugh. "And this – and this is inexplicable to me – but it does not feel like I am committing what the Med-Jai order calls the sin of the damned."

Marjorie let the tears fall, and buried herself into his embrace.

"So now I doubt," Ardeth said.

TO BE CONTINUED…

Note: I will be updating this eventually, but as of now, circumstances in real life (ah, college… the crusher of my dreams) are forcing me to put this story on hold for a few months. Thank you very much for reading and for reviewing! See you sometime in May!


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